The provision of digitized content on-demand to millions of users presents a formidable challenge. With an ever increasing number of fixed and mobile devices with video capabilities, and a growing consumer base with different preferences, there is a need for a scalable and adaptive way of delivering a diverse set of files in real time to a worldwide consumer base.
These files should be accessible in such a way that the constraints posed by bandwidth and the diversity of demand is met without having to resort to client server architectures and specialized network protocols. This is addressed today by peer-to-peer networks, where each peer can be both a consumer and provider of a service. Peer-to-peer networks, unlike client server architectures, automatically scale in size as demand fluctuates. Furthermore, they are able to adapt to system failures. Examples of such systems are Bittorrent and Kazaa, which account for a sizable percentage of all the use of the Internet today. Furthermore, new services such as the British. Broadcasting Corporation Integrated Media Player show that it is possible to make media content available through a peer-to-peer system while still respecting digital rights.
However, providing such varied content presents a problem which peer-to-peer networks do not solve. Namely, as new content is created, the system ought to be able to swiftly respond to new demand on specific content, regardless of its popularity. This is a hard constraint on any distributed system, since providers with a finite amount of memory and bandwidth will tend to offer the most popular content, as is the case today with many peer-to-peer systems.
What is needed is an adaptable and efficient system and method, capable of robustly delivering any file, regardless of its popularity.